Mobile phone addiction stops teen smoking

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A SILVER lining has been found in the mobile phone addiction of
teenagers: they are so broke after coughing up the money to pay
their phone bills that they can't afford to smoke.

The connection has been made by health officials in Japan, who
yesterday announced an unprecedented drop in the rate of smoking
among teenagers.

There is "a high chance that phone bills are weighing on the
money they spend on cigarettes", said the head of research at the
Health, Labour and Welfare Ministry and assistant director of the
National Institute of Public Health, Kenji Hayashi.

A survey of 103,500 high school students found that the rate of
smoking among boys aged 17 and 18 had fallen to 22 per cent in
2004, compared with 37 per cent in surveys done in 1996 and 2000.
Among girls, the rate had fallen to below 10 per cent, down from
the previous 16 per cent. The rate among 12 and 13-year-olds halved
to 3.2 per cent.

Mr Hayashi said mobile phone ownership among teenagers was
rising and there was evidence that the bills were a major
expense.

"The monthly allowance students get ranges between 6000 and 7000
yen ($A72 and $A84)," he said.

"Over 80 per cent of them own a cell phone and some studies show
that the phone bills they pay amount to 4000 to 6000 yen."

Japan is a haven for smokers young and old. Though the legal age
is 20, cigarettes are sold from unsupervised street vending
machines for about $A3 a packet of 20.

Last month 13 new cigarette brands were launched.

Though tobacco use has been in slow decline since 1995, Japan
still has more than 30 million smokers, putting it in the world's
top four tobacco markets.